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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Was reading an interesting post on the Temasek Review and after reading all the comments to that post, felt that I had to add my 2 cents worth to it.

I agreed with the writer that too many Singaporeans are complaining and whining about everything under the sky. There is no sense of what is right or wrong. Nothing, it seems, the Govt do is right. HDB prices too high? Cannot afford to buy. Blame the govt. HDB prices too low. Cannot make profits. Blame the govt. Car prices too high. Blame the govt and COE. ERP? Blame the govt. Traffic jam? Blame the govt. Too many foreign workers. Blame the govt. You get the picture? However, most of the time, what these people do is rant and rave without coming up with any constructive feedbacks or valid points. Do not disagree for the sake of disagreeing. Calling other forum writers and even ministers names ain't going to help or make matter rights. If anything, it will simply serve to divert attention from the real issues.

However, unlike the writer, I will not go so far as to ask these people to leave Singapore. For those people who really have an axe to grind with the govt or is not happy with any policies, there are proper and legal channels to be heard. Hiding behind the cloak of anonmyity on the net is not one of them. And if the proper and legal channels doesn't work and you still feel strongly about it, stand up do something about it. Join the opposition or form your own. Write to the press, join a NGOs and be heard.

Unfortunately, as for me, I guess I am gonna be expecting a flood of hate mails, names calling, vulgarities being hurled at me here:

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Princess has continued with her now almost weekly baking and these are the output. (Proud father must show off a bit leh....)

Shepherd Pie. We finished it all off so it passed the test

This one dunno what it is. A bit like a biscuit with chocolate inside. Smell nice but a bit too dry and hard

Another chocolate creation. Both of us love chocolate so she uses a lot of them in her baking. This is a bread with chocolate filling. I think it is called a chocolate swirl bread or something like that. Passed. Finished it off during breakfast the next day

Her contribution for Chinese New Year ~ Cornflakes cookie. This got can sell standard!

This so cute. I think got white chocolate and marshmallows or something. Sweet, crisps. Nice

This one very plain looking but one of the best. Lemon biscuit or cookie

My favourite type of food ~ muffin. Still no muffin top but nevermind taste good more important.

I think this is some sort of chocolate brownie. Bit chewy. Not exactly my cup of tea though.

And last but not least, something which I had a hand in, White chocolate cookies. Guess what role I played in bringing it to fruition?

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Sometime you meet people so beautiful and kind you think there is hope for us human yet.

Was talking to an employee of a customer who owes us money. Asked him whether his boss was paying his salary on time. He said no, and his family was nagging him about it. Asked him why he didn't quit. He said he's not that type to abandon ship. His boss has been nice to him and he wants to return the kindness. In fact he (the employee) was so kind that he was his paying his boss' loan with his own money (which was why I was talking to him in the first place).

Monday, April 19, 2010

How stupid can people be? And I am not talking about the aunties and uncles who get conned by trickster with magic cure all stones, kidnapped grandchildren or the classic sleight of hand trick.

What is amazing are the stories of young ladies who get conned. Yesterday, TNP ran this story about a girl who earns instant fame when her ex posted all their trysts in all its glory on the web. You could think that after the Edison Chen/Cecilia saga, these ladies will be more smart. But then again maybe love is really blind.

But what about last week story of models wannabe who got 'conned' into posing nude or sleeping with the photographer? I mean they least they could have done was to ask for payment before stripping for the camera. And sleeping with the photographer/boss? Do they think they are Wendy Chong?

Maybe these are bimbos so what they so stupidly did is understanding since bimbos got no brain but how about this? Over the causeway, this young man (Yes MAN!) masturbated in front of his web cam for a man he never met and is now complaining of being blackmailed! But seriously, what did he expect? A blowjob?

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Mind Your Body on Thursday had this article on eating many small meals a day and why it does not help to loose more weight than a typical 3 meals a day. The typical meal for most people is breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, the latest fad is the several small meals (usually 6) a days. The idea behind this is that the frequent meal will stimulates the metabolism and burn more calories as opposed to the 3 main meals.

I don't know about which is better but being typically kiasu, I combined the two together and ended up with this daily meal routine:

6.30am - A sandwich and a kopi-o kosong
9.00am - A cup of bean flower water er I mean soya bean and another sandwich or a piece of kueh from the hawker centre
11.30am - A piece of fruit
1.30 pm - Lunch (usually 2 bowls of porridge with 3 side dishes or thunder tea rice or sliced fish soup with rice) Very boring hor?
5.00 pm - 2 or 3 pieces of fruit including 1 banana
8.30 pm - Dinner (usually home cooked; rice with whatever Mum cooks)
9.30 pm - Fruits
10.30 pm - Lots of mixed nuts; cranberries; raisins or chocolate or ice cream (depending on whatever is available; usually have one or more)

And that is for weekdays. Weekend is free for all which means pizza, noodles, burgers and whatever nice.

So a lot or not? Sounds like a lot but believe it or not, even though I have been eating roughly along this line for the past few years I have not put on much weight even though I really wanted to. Maybe it is due to my daily exercise regime? Maybe I burned more calories than I take in? Cont'd here:

Friday, April 16, 2010

Noticed something about the above sentence? Don't understand what I trying to write here? How about reading it out loud? Does it make more sense now?

The other day, was writing a word and I couldn't recall how to spell it. And I noticed something too. I have been making many mistakes in my writing and never noticed - like huge/hugh; from/form; principal/principle. Is this a sightsign of old age and I am losing it?

But actually I blame it on our modern technologies. Remember those days when we can recall every single phone number of our relatives and friends? Now try and recall 10 numbers without scrolling down your phone's contact list. Or how about doing some simple arithmetic. No, don't reach for the calculator. So it is with spelling too. With spell check and auto correct in almost every software program, the computers and electronic things are taking our memories away.

And what was I trying to prove in the first sentence? That if properly spelled, the computer cannot spot the mistakes (noticed there is no red underline) and if you copy the whole sentence into a spell checker or say Microsoft Words, the most you get is one word flagged out. So are we are going to end up as blabbing idiot if we don't use our brain more and leave everything to electronics and modern technologies?

And in case you still don't get it, the sentence reads:

My whole body aches like hell. May be it is because I over did the weights.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

And then, and then.... she started flossing her freaking teeth there and then in front of everybody else. And she looks like she was enjoying it too, vigorously pulling the thread up and down with her mouth opened wide.

Luckily I finished eating, otherwise sure cannot finish. Also very lucky never merlion.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

What happened when old friends meet? They talked about the good old days. What happened when old Christian friends meet? They talked about Christian things of course. What happened when old Christian friends meet with old not so Christian friend? Of course they cajoled, they nagged and they preach, and they nagged some more and they argued and then nagged some more...

These dear friends see in this old man here a prodigal, wayward son who must be turned back on the right path. To them, the fact that I do not belong to a Church, do not do all the seemingly Christians thingy mean I am not a Christian. To them, it is inconceivable that a Christian can be a closet Christian. A Christian must go to church, says the sinner prayers, have daily quiet time, spread the words blah blah blah. My retort was that a Christian should not be defined by his/her deeds and actions which they of course readily agreed with a big BUT: How do I as a father feel if my son do not call me, talk to me, acknowledge me daily? Now I don't know where they came from but isn't that what been going on in most people's life nowadays? I remembered I did not see or talk to my old man for many many years until almost towards his end. Did that make me any less his son?

So when that line fails, they revert to the all time favourite Christian's triumph card ~ Heaven and Hell of course. Normally that will pissed me off no end because I hate it whenever Christian talks about believers going to Heaven and everybody else going down under because conversion by fear is something that I never believe in and which is one of the big reason why I stopped going to Church. But these are close friends so no offence taken and we diverted our talk to more sinful matters like the unfortunate Rony Tan saga.

But of course the ladies have to have a last say and this SMS came later while on my way home: "Praying tt u will find success in Christ!". The problem with this is that I didn't know I was a failure. Jeez!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

This is the Chinese 清明节 month or Tomb Sweeping Festival where the Chinese honors their ancestors by 'sweeping' or cleaning the tomb. It is not as well known as the other ancestors remembrance 7th month or more infamously known as the Hungry Ghost month.Back to the Tomb Sweeping Festival.

Here in Singapore, there are only a few pockets of tombs left so the practice of sweeping tomb is more or less dying out. Traditionally though, the descendants will descend on the tomb 3 weeks before the actual day to clean it up before following it up with a 'feast' for the deceased.So if there is no tomb, then sweep what?

Most deceased are cremated and the ashes are kept in public crematorium or Chinese Temple. And so the past 2 weeks, we have been making the rounds.

The first was the Mandai Crematorium where the deceased are housed in HDB looking block of 'flats'. The environment here is serene very suitable for the dead who I am sure appreciate the peace and quietness.

The ashes of the deceased are kept in urns placed into the niches. Flowers, mostly fakes are placed on the outside of the niche. One macabre thing is that the living can also buy the niche space and reserve it for themselves so that presumably they can be next to their families and loves one when it is their time to reside there. What is most sad is to see the small toys placed here and there in memory of the little ones who has no chance to grow up. The aisle are kept clean by a battery of cleaners so the 'tomb' sweeping seems to be redundant here.

Over in Bedok South, is this temple where the remains of M's ancestors are kept.

Temples like this all over the island have alloted spaces within the temple to house the remains and these places don't come cheap. Like real property, the 'purchase price' varies according to location. Pay more for eye level niches spaces, better view.